Burn
by MissSherlockHieiHolmes
Summary: Based on Burn by Cassidy Haley, this was a prompt I received on my Loki rp blog on tumblr. One of my closest friends and I ended up roleplaying Doctor/Loki and they were originally meant to be friends. They clicked so brilliantly that we couldn't actually avoid them falling into a relationship. I know crossover pairings can be strange but this has become one of my OTPs.


Loki had been traveling with the Doctor for quite some time and since the day the Doctor came to save him from his imprisonment, he never regretted his decision to run away with the mad man and his box. The moment the Doctor took his hand and pulled him onto the T.A.R.D.I.S., he felt as though he finally found a home. Back then, Loki and the Doctor were nothing more than friends, acquaintances really. They're relationship developed over time, into what it was now, but back then? Loki was simply happy that someone was willing to give him a second chance.

The Avengers certainly weren't going to. That was one of the reasons he had been locked in that damned cell, they didn't trust him to be any sort of decent when he was alone and on his own. If one of the Avengers (usually Thor or Tony) could not be with him, he was locked away, like some sort of animal caged because it had violent tendencies. As much as his brother wanted to believe that there was good inside of him, Thor couldn't give him the proper understanding, love and support necessary to give him a shot at redemption. Loki was truly beginning to believe that he was beyond hope and that even if he worked to pull himself out of the mental void he had fallen into, he would never be given a chance to prove that he was a goodhearted person. He truly feared that he was condemned to always choose the side of darkness and sorrow.

That feeling of lost hope faded when the Doctor appeared before him. Although he wore a different face from the face that Loki remembered from their first encounter, there was no doubt in his mind that the Doctor was the same person. If anything, the Doctor was a better person after so much time to live and to grow. If anyone was going to help Loki seem a more positive outlook on life, it was the Doctor.

Falling in love was never part of his plan, although traveling with the Doctor never really went according to plan. They went where the wind (or the T.A.R.D.I.S. rather) took them. Sometimes they were needed where they landed. Loki couldn't actually keep track of all the enemies they faced. Daleks, Cybermen… In fact, the Cybermen attempted to upgrade Loki at one point. Needless to say, every last one of them perished at the hands of the couple. Cybermen were Loki's least favorite thus far, he had to admit. He barely liked humans the way they were (although the Doctor was helping him see their worth as a whole), he definitely didn't like the upgraded version.

Of course they weren't always thrown into dangerous and life endangering situations and those were the times that Loki dreaded the most when he first began traveling with the Doctor. Between such rush and excitement, Loki quickly fell back into a state where he was afraid of allowing the monster within him to shine through. He worked so terribly hard to hide himself, the part of himself that made him think he couldn't and wouldn't be able to keep playing the part of the hero. Sometimes he actually had to wonder if he was merely pretending to be something he wasn't.

When Loki fell into these moods, he usually locked himself away. This wasn't exactly a healthy solution for the god because he was left to his thoughts, his demeanor grew more and more negative. Not that he would ever admit this to the man he lived aboard the T.A.R.D.I.S. with, sometimes he craved to spill every last one of his fears. If he got this off of his shoulder, would he not feel better? He was quite sure that he would be, but he feared his friend's reaction to such ideas. The Doctor and Loki shared many things in common, a dark and crimson stained history being one of them, but Loki couldn't see the Doctor as anything short of what was good in the universe.

The Doctor was nothing short of his savior.

Again, he wasn't going to admit that to the Doctor. They both had rather large egos to cover up everything they hated about themselves. The blue box that they traveled in could only contain so much ego before she might consider locking them both out. There was no point in inflating the Doctor's ego with such a claim, but even Loki couldn't deny what the Doctor had done for him. Even after attempting to take over Midgard, after killing so many innocent (or mostly innocent would be a better term) people, he was sure to be doomed to a life of misery, failure and hatred. The Doctor changed that, showed him that it didn't need to be so hopeless and that time could always be rewritten. He taught Loki that there was absolutely no giving up on hope. Hope would always exist.

Looking back on their time together, it was no wonder that Loki fell in love with the Doctor. It wasn't even just a physical attraction like so many of Loki's lovers, it was straight to his heart. Getting the Doctor to not only realize that he shared his companion's feelings but to act on them as well was no small feat. It took quite a bit of work on Loki's end without coming right out to say that he was in love with the Time Lord. The Doctor was kind of clueless when it came to romance and Loki could understand why. He had been alone for so long and the one person that he did happen to love, Rose Tyler, wasn't really around long enough to become truly romantic with her. Needless to say, the Doctor's oblivion was a bit infuriating but Loki always questioned whether it was for the best or not. If he became the Doctor's lover, would he become a better person? Or would he drag the Doctor down into his darkness?

That was something Loki never allowed himself to dwell on, even now that they had been lovers for quite some time, Loki couldn't and wouldn't allow his mind to linger on such ideas. When the Doctor fell into such dark moods, where he wanted nothing more than to lock himself away from the universe, Loki logically knew that wasn't his fault. Just as he had baggage, so did the Doctor. They complimented each other in ways that most people would never take the time to understand. They had both given into darker desires. They had killed people, destroyed for their own personal gain and the Doctor spent most of his time running from his past, while Loki felt as though he were suffocated by it. Just because he happened to know that the Doctor's darker moods were not his fault, he couldn't help but feel responsible for such. As if the Time Lord being around him brought on a darker sense to his being. What Loki didn't really consider was the fact that the Doctor generally was a darker individual when he traveled alone. This was nothing to do with Loki, but the false guilt weighed heavy on his heart regardless.

Today happened to be one of the days that the Doctor felt really down on himself. Loki awoke in their bed to no one and nothing but the pillows and sheets. That, he couldn't help but think, was rather odd. Loki didn't sleep as much as humans did and he didn't even sleep every night, but he did sleep far more than the Doctor did. When he slept, the Doctor usually allowed him to lay with him, Loki's head resting over his chest as he read a book. Although Loki never said it out loud and would openly deny it if he were called out for such, he loved the sound of the Doctor's heartbeats. He became so accustomed to falling asleep to the sound, he found it rather difficult to fall asleep without the sound.

"Doctor?" Loki called but he knew that the Doctor wasn't with him. He couldn't hear a single sound that wasn't being created by himself. The scent of his lover hung in the air but it wasn't because the Doctor was present, it was because this was their room and the scent always lingered. "Damn," he muttered, pushing himself out of the bed. He hadn't been under the covers, what was the point of curling up in a restricting blanket if he didn't actually get cold?

Surprisingly Loki was already dressed. The night before had been a bit of cuddling and a few kisses before Loki fell asleep. Kissing and cuddling didn't require the removal of clothing, but he happened to enjoy more… intimate activities. He couldn't keep himself awake long enough to push for anything more than a few kisses. He was never more thankful for such a lack of sex the night before.

"Doctor?" Loki called again, straightening his shirt to smooth out the wrinkles as he left their bedroom, turning in the direction of the console room. His ears didn't pick up any odd sort of sound, so Loki simply went to the heart of the T.A.R.D.I.S., assuming he would find his lover there. For a moment, he believed the room to be empty and he frowned, walking over to the console. He patted the T.A.R.D.I.S. with an affectionate hand. Sometimes, when he was alone, he would talk to her. He knew some people would judge him for such, but they didn't understand that the police box was actually alive. She could understand everything he said, she could even make her content known. She also had a habit of choosing the Doctor's destinations when he didn't know where to go. She took him where he was needed and Loki knew very well that she brought the Doctor back to him. If it hadn't been for her, he wouldn't have reunited with the Doctor at all and he certainly wouldn't be as happy as he presently was.

Walking around the console, Loki finally locked eyes on the brunette. The back of his head, to be exact. The door to the T.A.R.D.I.S. was opened and the Doctor was sitting on the edge, looking out across the stars that dotted the empty voids of space. He didn't seem to be doing anything aside from watching the stars, probably lost in his thoughts. He wasn't sure, exactly, what was going through his head, but the slump of his shoulders told Loki that he was in a pretty low place. He wondered, briefly, if the Doctor had fallen asleep while he was lying with Loki and had another nightmare. Loki believed that his nightmares were a thing of the past, for he was plagued with them once they grew too close, but he still seemed to be haunted by the dreams of his past companions. On more than one occasion, Loki knew that his lover had dreamt about him leaving or dying and it frightened him more than he could admit, even to himself.

"Darling? Whatever is the matter?" he questioned in the softest tone he could manage. The god slowly took a seat next to the Time Lord, his eyes drifting towards the saddened expression upon his lover's face. The view of the stars was truly beautiful but Loki got to see things like that every day. What he didn't get to see very often was this horrible that dulled his lover's chocolate colored eyes. Loki was grateful that it didn't crop up more often, but when he did, it made his heart clench in an unnatural fashion. "Doctor?"

The Doctor didn't really reply to him straight away. Whether he was so far gone within his thoughts and didn't hear him or was simply ignoring him, Loki couldn't tell. His lover wasn't really one to ignore others, unless that person was the source of his unhappiness and, for a small moment, Loki was frightened that he had done something wrong. "I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor finally answered, his milk chocolate eyes lingering on the stars for a moment before he finally turned his head to look at his lover.

"Night terrors again?" Loki questioned, a touch of worry obvious in his emerald eyes. The light from the closest stars reflected brilliant off of the Doctor's eyes. He had no knowledge of the fact that his eyes reflected just the same and the Doctor stared at him for a moment more, silence falling between them again.

"No, I didn't sleep at all," the Doctor replied after a moment of searching Loki's emerald eyes. Beauty aside, he only saw the worry that his lover held for him. It was to be expected. Loki could certainly be selfish but underneath his ego, he had a heart and he showed it happily to those patient enough to coax it to the surface. It was one of the things the Doctor claimed he loved about Loki and something that happened to make him human.

"Then what are you so upset about, Doctor? And do not tell me that you are fine because I know you better than that by now. You may lie quite a bit, but your lies do not fool me," Loki muttered, hoping that the light joke would actually get through to him. "Now out with it." Loki was a persistent bitch when he truly wanted answers.

Sighing, the Doctor turned his head back to star out at the stars. "I finished my book, set it aside and attempted to get a bit of rest because I knew you would be asleep for at least a few more hours. I'm not really sure what happened, to be perfectly honest. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and when I opened them again, I was just in this state of disheartened pessimism." The Doctor rarely used words like "pessimism", so that was an automatic red flag.

"Is there anything in particular that is upsetting you, darling, or are you just in a sort of… how do Midgardians say it? Funk?" he asked, slowly snaking his arm around the shorter man. All right, so the Doctor was really only a couple of centimeters shorter than him and with his hair, most people couldn't even tell, but Loki was taller and that was the only thing that mattered as far as that argument went.

A soft, weak chuckle escaped the Doctor's lips. Just hearing his lover, his excessively and annoyingly proper lover say the word "funk" was enough to pull a bit of amusement from him but it was short lived. "I suppose you could say that. I started thinking about a lot of things all of a sudden. My past, before I met you and in between the time we were apart." Loki knew very well that one of those things was probably Rose, but Rose didn't bother him as much as she used to. Rose would always have a place in the Doctor's hearts but his hearts belonged to Loki now, just as his heart belonged to the Doctor. It hardly seemed fair that Loki only had one heart to give, but he did everything within his power to prove that was worthy of his lover.

Loki pulled the scrawny man against his side and kissed his forehead. "You can tell me about it if you would like. You know you do not have to, of course," he muttered into the brunette's hair.

A half hearted smile crossed the Doctor's face for a moment. Being in his lover's arms clearly helped lighten his mood, but Loki could smell the sorrow upon the man's being. It wasn't a welcomed smell and Loki wanted to rid him of it as soon as possible. "You and I share a great many things in common, Loki, even things that we don't like to discuss. You know this, it's one of the reasons you and I have flown so wonderfully together," he said, leaning against Loki in a way that cute couples would cuddle on a bench in Central Park. You know the type, the couples that you pass and you just glare at them for being so fucking cute. "So many things from my past help me to understand why you have done what you have done. That is why I held so much hope for you when we finally came face to face again, because I could relate to you."

"But?"

"What makes you think there's a but?"

"I know you have more to say. You never stop talking." Again, Loki was only trying to break the tension with a bit of humor. It seemed to work well enough because a soft smirk crossed the Doctor's lips.

"Oi, I talk the perfectly right amount thank-you-very-much," the Doctor insisted, not unlike he normally would when he called the man out on talking far too much. There wasn't much that actually shut him up. "Anyway..." the Doctor continued when he saw Loki cock a skeptical eyebrow down at him. "I've been running from my past for so long, running from myself even, sometimes the past just floods my mind and I can't fight it off."

This was exactly what Loki had always feared, he realized, that he would bring the Doctor down to what people believed he, himself, was. If the Doctor reverted back to what he had been, Loki believed it would be his fault and he swallowed. Was this leading to what he secretly feared more than anything else in the universe? Surely the Doctor wouldn't really... No. Shut up, Loki, just stop thinking, there is nothing for you to worry about. You get into these moods as well. It happens.

But Loki couldn't shake the nervous feeling. "My apologies, have I done something to bring about such thoughts?" Loki questioned but the Doctor actually laughed at such a question. He shook his head, looking up at his lover finally.

"Loki, darling, you have got to stop with this blaming yourself and your low self esteem, how many times am I going to have to worry about your self loathing?" It had become a sort of inside joke between them, to tease one another about their self esteem issues considering both of their egos happened to be massive. "No, you haven't done anything wrong. In fact, I was just thinking about you before you woke up. After I spent several hours of thinking of such negative things, I couldn't help but bring up something that brings me happiness. Don't let it go to your head, but that's obviously you."

"But you do not like to think of your past. You seem to do it quite a lot when you are with me. Did you do this with your other companions?"

"Yes, but not as much, you're right about that, but not because there's something wrong with you."

"Why then?"

"Because..." The Doctor sighed, worried about inflating Loki's ego too much, but Loki wasn't here to comfort him for bragging rights. This was one of the few times where Loki wore his heart on his sleeve and put the Doctor first, he realized. His only desire was to understand and to help. "Because with the rest of my companions, I was always running. Running from planet to planet, running from the past, attempting to keep it at bay. It was easy to forget about my own problems when I had someone else to care for and protect. With you? I don't need to protect you because you can protect yourself. In fact, you are often protecting me. That doesn't mean I don't watch out for you anyway, but you aren't a proper distraction for running away from the past. You are the first person to travel with me who truly understands what it is like to be something dark and cruel. Never evil, but choosing the wrong path. You and I have both done it time and time again but now we are here, in the T.A.R.D.I.S., happy with one another. We run from our enemies, obviously but we aren't forced to run from ourselves anymore. As much as you have believed me to help you, after breaking you out of that cell and everything, you have done just as much for me."

"How? Doctor, I have done nothing particularly worthy of such a claim."

Smiling softly, the Doctor shook his head. Somehow their conversation seemed to be lifting his spirits. "You have done so much more than you realize, Loki. Have you not been listening? I used my companions to run, to keep on running but with you I don't have to. Watching you not only shift to become such a caring and brilliant man after you hit rock bottom, but to watch you slowly begin to forgive yourself for what you have done? To accept the parts of you that you aren't exactly thrilled with, like your Jotun form? If you can do that, why can't I? I've been asking myself this for so long. I've always run away from what I was and who I used to be but I can't because it will always be part of me, just like your deeds will always be part of you. If you can find salvation and you can begin to forgive yourself, you can set an example for me to do the same. You have given me the freedom to stop running and although looking back over my life, especially certain aspects of such, can be painful, I now have the freedom to accept what I have done. I can begin to forgive myself and realize that what has happened in my past will never fade, but it did mold me into the man I am today. I can't thank you enough for that because no one else has ever given me such liberties."

For a moment Loki was speechless, which was shocking enough. He never really viewed things that way. He had heard the Doctor tell him several times that he needed him, but Loki never really believed those words to be true. How could a Time Lord with access to all of time and space need him? Now, however, he was beginning to understand. The Doctor's past companions were his escape.

Loki was his acceptance.

"If you can forgive yourself, which I know from experience is easier said than done, then you need not wear such a long face, Doctor," Loki muttered, his eyes meeting his lover's. He used his free hand to seek out the hold of his lover's and kissed his temple again. "The past is the past, even for a Time Lord, we cannot change what lies along our own timelines. This, however, does not mean that we need to dwell on such things. T'is hard sometimes, I know that from experience as well, but with acceptance comes calmness. Once you accept yourself for what you were and what you are now, the need to dwell on such topics fades."

Slowly the god laced his fingers through the Doctor's, holding onto it tight enough to reassure him but not enough to hurt him. "Someone once told me that your past actions do not define who and what you are today. Forgive and let lie, I suppose you could say. If you can forgive yourself, you can allow these fits of depression to burn away," Loki added, his eyes now examining their intertwined hands.

"And you believe you can do that?"

"With you? I feel as though I can do anything, Doctor," Loki admitted, flashing one of those rare, content smiles that lit up the entire room, or T.A.R.D.I.S. rather. "Together we will cast our fears away, deal?"

That cheeky grin that Loki loved so much stretched across the Doctor's face and, for once, he only uttered one word.

"Deal."


End file.
